


rotor stator daughter son

by sighduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bad Pep Talks, Boundaries, Cisswap, Cultural Misunderstandings, F/M, Gen, Gender, Mansplaining, Selective Omission, Self Esteem, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6169897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sighduck/pseuds/sighduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe paints his toenails; Finn is handsome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rotor stator daughter son

**Author's Note:**

> Poe, listening to What Makes You Beautiful: Why is this is so real

 

 

 _The most important innovation of the TIE-805 series starfighter, of course, is the_ \--

'Huh,' says Finn. '...Poe?'

'Yea,' he says, distracted, not quite breaking pace: _The most important innovation of the...TIE-805....series......--_

Poe glances up from his datapad. Finn's currently staring intently at the hole in his right sock.

'Finn,' Poe says carefully, 'what are you doing?'

'Your toe looks weird,' Finn points out. 'Did you hurt your foot?'

Poe looks down at his foot in mild alarm. Oh, is she talking about-- '--oh no, that's just Second Skin,' Poe says, relieved. 'Elastic colour. You can put it in your hair--' he flexes his foot '--on your toenails. You know.' He shrugs. 'I just like how it looks.'

Finn narrows her eyes and, in one smooth motion, has pulled his holey sock all the way off. Lucky thing that Poe's not self-concious over his dancer-ugly feet anymore. Lucky, lucky thing.

Finn breaks out into a grin when he wriggles his toes at her. 'It looks,' she says, with a half-apologetic glance back at him, 'like you slammed your foot into the wall.'

Poe kindly doesn't tell her that his feet have always looked like that. 'That's actually exactly the aesthetic I was going for,' he says, pushing his hair back. He stops short of shaking it out - not long enough for that anymore. 'Slammed wall chic, you know. Biggest thing in four systems.' Swaggering smile to let her know he's just tossing-gakk.

'Sounds a bit niche,' Finn says, wry. 'Suits you, though.'

'Aw,' says Poe. He sits up so he can put his sock back on - too cold in here for barefoot hijinks. 'You're just saying that.'

Finn sighs. 'No,' she says, flopping face-down onto the bed, muffled into her arms. ' _Ehh'hr'hnng_ s'hhh hh.'

Poe cups his ear. 'Once more for the hard-of-hearing, please?'

Finn slumps further into the bed; lifts her face, turns it sideways. Pokes at Poe's other foot until he laughs and sits cross-legged. 'I said,' she says, face still hidden, 'everything suits you.'

'Well...back atcha, buddy,' says Poe. He means it, of course -- but at the same time he doesn't really think about it too much. Not, at least, until Finn's shoulders tense up. He might not've noticed if she'd kept his wetshirt on, but she runs warm, exceptionally warm, and so is just in a long, thin, low-backed shirt he's pretty sure was part of a set, once. Rey's, he figures.

Poe carefully places his datapad on the dresser; nudges the line of Finn's ribs with his knee. Doesn't move away even after she looks back at him. 'So. How's the turnin'?'

Finn bites her lip. 'The turning...the turning is fine,' she says, very carefully. Overenunciating like when she talks to the General. Or when she's lying. _Selective omission_ , she calls it. 'Hey...how much of that stuff do you have?'

Poe blinks at the abrupt about-face. 'What, of Second Skin?' She nods. 'Uhh...depends on how much you need.'

Finn rolls flat onto her back, hip-nudging her way more fully onto the bed. Grandpa ain't raise no fool - Poe looks her in the face, and only in the face. 'Do you have enough for my hair?'

Finn hasn't gotten her hair cut in a good while - one of her squadmates has been teaching her how to do different stuff with it, far as Poe knows. They weren't too big on hair care in the F.O., she told him once, Jakku dry, after the first time she had Rey buzz it all off. ( _F.O._ , when they were in public, and lately now in private, too -- as if anybody worth knowing could possibly overhear her talking about where she'd come from and not think she was the bravest person in the room.)

Given her length, though-- 'Ahh, probably not, no,' Poe says. 'Sorry.' Finn's face sheerdrops, blanks...she blinks, and nods in understanding. Hm. 'I'll ask for some next supply run, ok? What colour'd'you want?'

'Uhhhm.' Finn pats the top of her head a few times, a little gentle, a little absentminded; presses her fingers down. Like she's forgotten she's got hair now and needs to remind herself. 'Blue?'

'Are you sure you don't want green??' Exaggerating her upward lilt, trying to make her laugh. 'Purple?? White??'

'White, are you joking?' Finn asks, frowning a little. 'I'd look like an old man, c'mon, Poe.'

Poe pauses, looks for any sign that she's joking; finds none. '--Where are you getting that from?'

Finn shoots him an incredulous look. 'Where am I getting the fact that 70% of humanoid species lose pigment in their hair follicles as they age?'

Well, that's...specific. 'Nuhnuhno,' says Poe, shaking his head, ' _You'd look like an old man_? Where's that coming from?'

'It's nothing,' she frowns down the length of the bed. 'Somebody just...mentioned something, is all.'

See, Poe wasn't _planning_ on spending his day off tomorrow hunting down some asshole skug and wringing xir neck - but he's adaptable. It's a strength. 'Somebody, who? What'd they say?'

Finn's scowl tapers out, leaving something a lot more confused behind. 'Uran, she...she said I was _handsome_.'

Poe blinks. 'Oh.' Not the adjective he would choose.

'--and it's not as though I think, I mean, obviously, I mean, look at me--' Poe's looking. '--it's not like I'm Rey or anything, I know I'm--I've got, strong features and all. My arms are kinda, you know.' She flexes, pats her left forearm unhappily.

'Yeah,' Poe agrees, nodding reverently. He catches himself, tries to school his expression into something non-skeeze.

'--and I don't know how to put any of that Jess stuff on--' Make-up, Poe translates '--and I don't know how to, how to not sweat and be not gross. 'Cus none of that--none of that ever _mattered_ before. Whatever you had under the helmet, whoever you were, it never mattered. Were you efficient? That was what mattered. We all ate the same food, we all had the same uniform. But here, it's like...if you're what's considered a girl, and if you're not what's considered pretty, you have to _become_ pretty. And there's all these xotty rules I don't understand about--about what I'm supposed to be.' She scrubs her hands over her face, lets out a sharp sigh. 'You know what? Never mind. You wouldn't understand.'

Poe swallows his first couple of responses. '...You know,' he says, 'when I was little, everyone used to call me pretty.' Finn sends him a speaking look: _Is now really the time?_ 'I've got a point here!, I promise. Just stay with me.' He takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair. 'I grew up kind of, you know, backrock, I've told you about it. Sort of old-fashioned, you know. And people kept their hair long. It didn't really mean anything, I don't think--I mean I never really asked, but it was just what everybody kind of did. You know? And everybody...everybody called me Chaya.'

Finn quickly passes the tips of her fingers under her eyes. 'What's that?'

Poe swipes at his nose, smiles ruefully. 'It means, ah, pretty-faced. Kind of like, good-inside? All the kids were Chaya at one point - it just meant. like. precious. Handled with care. But they called me that all the time, 'cus they knew I missed my parents a lot.'

'Cha-ya,' Finn repeats. She smiles, sweet through and through. 'That's nice.'

Poe tears his eyes away from her face. Keep it cool, man. 'Anyway, so. ah.' Clears his throat. 'Nobody ever really cared if I kept my hair long, I just always had it down my back. It was only when I joined up that I found out that, you know. long hair on humanoid males sometimes has a...a certain connotation.'

Finn furrows her brow. 'What do you mean?'

'I-i-it just wasn't the style,' Poe half-lies. 'Some of the Starfleet cadets were, you know, daughters and sons of duchesses, ambassadors, politicians...they'd grown up pretty much all over. Socialites, basically. They knew they'd never really see any action - they just wanted something to do without actually having to do anything.' Finn's watching him with a confused cast to her expression.

Looking at her...Poe realises for the first time that most of those rich kids are probably...probably dead now.

He deflates slightly, trying to remember his point. 'Anyway. Everything was just very--clipped. Horns shorn, hair layered, fur trimmed. That kind of thing. I stuck out like a sore thumb, at first. Some of the guys found out about my nickname, I don't know how, and were, you know. Kinda scummy about it.'

'So you cut your hair,' Finn concludes.

'I cut my hair,' Poe agrees. 'Because I cared too much about what people think.' Finn stares at him, expectant, clearly waiting for the other engine to start. 'So - don't be like me, is my point.'

Finn looks at him thoughtfully. 'So, what - you _don't_ care what people think, anymore?'

'I mean. well.' Rubs his hand down the back of his neck. 'I care about what some people think. My family, obviously. My squadmates. The General.' You. 'You. And I guess I care in a general way about....what people think about my place in the Resistance. What I do; how I do it. Everything else, though? S'not really their business.'

Somewhere along the way, Poe's leaned down all alongside Finn - it's still a slight shock to realise she's close enough to reach out and tug at his hair. Poe fights down a tremble, stays craton-still. 'Well, if you don't care what people think,' says Finn, '--why don't you keep it long anymore?'

'Ah, I don't know,' his voice is shaking a little, 'it's kind of inconvenient. Gets real thick, you know; makes the helmet all hot.' She's tugging a bit more firmly now; watching his face closely. Poe lets out a sharp sigh, tries to act normal. 'Plus, you know. Split ends. Can't use up all my ration tabs on yucca wax.' He tries out a laugh.

Finn makes a low, dawwish kind of hum. 'That makes sense.' Poe grins sideways at her. 'So your point was...it doesn't matter if Uran thinks I look handsome, I should just change something about my appearance for so long...that I forget about why I ever did it in the first place?'

Poe pulls out of her grasp; she lets him go, easy. 'That's not...quite how I'd put it, no,' Poe murmurs, peering down at her. Finn peers back up at him, flat-faced. '...I should've just left it alone, right.'

'You should've just left it alone,' Finn agrees.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Re: 'none of that ever mattered before!' Finn is correct that gender (or the lack thereof) would not necessarily operate in the same way among the First Order as it does outside of it - I do doubt that it never played into anything, however, especially given that Hux, Kylo, Snoke, and almost all of the Stormtroopers we hear besides Phasma, read as masculine. Perhaps the tie-in books paint a clearer picture, I don't know.


End file.
